IK Multimedia Amplitube RTAS Mac

I have been making music for 20 years. I play guitar, bass, drums. I have amplitube 2.0, running on a mac 1.8 single processer, 2 gig ram, Digi 002 interface with pro tools 6.9. I am currently using amplitube to replace pre-recorded guitar tones.

The interface is easy to use. The sounds are very good, it is easy to get exactly what I am looking for quickly. Out of the 400 factory presets we spent a lot of time picking out the best starting points and then tweaking from there as needed, there were quite a few really great sounds there already. Some of the sounds we are replacing were from a line 6 vetta II and a pod xt, the amplitube sounds are much more realistic/lifelike.

HOWEVER- this thing constantly crashes pro tools, and sometimes freezes my sytem completely. Amplitube 2 is a huge memory hog... On my system I can normally run 24 tracks of protools with multiple reverbs and loads of other plugins with no problem, but if I open Amplitube 2 I can only run maybe 4 tracks with any stability, and Amplitube 2 will still crash pro tools if I try to run it in 2 amp mode OR if I try to open certain factory presets that have too many stomp boxes/rack effects running OR if I try to change patches during playback OR just whenever it feels like crashing. I was able to work around this by printing some temporary submixes to monitor while tweaking Amplitube in the mix and then printing Amplitube tracks and importing to my original sessions but it was a real pain in the neck... due to this I give Amplitube the lowest rating possible for ease of use, if it were any more difficult I probably would not use it.

the presets are good with many MANY good usable tones. some amp models that I have never been able to get a decent usable sound from in my other modelers (vetta II, podxt) sound brilliant/perfect here with no tweaking at all. I don't think it could sound any better than it does, I have some marshall and fender tube amps but even if I had the mics that are simulated here and the full collection of amps modeled here there is no way I could mic them and get them to sound as good as Amplitube sounds, I have tried in the past but just don't have the engineering skills necessary, or a decent room to turn the amps loose in... so I give the sound quality a 10. If you are a genius engineer with a nice studio and well stocked mic cabinet you could probably get a better sound but I have paid for studio time at plenty of places and none of those studios ever gave me the quality of recorded guitar sound I am getting now with this software.

I paid $200 for the upgrade from amplitube le (included with digidesign bundle), and yes even with the crashing problems after I found a work around I would still say it is worth it. Amplitube LE was just *okay* sound wise, I have amplitube 1 on my PC also and it is not very impressive so I was pleasantly suprised at the quality of the sound in Amplitube 2. I have a Vetta II but it is so much trouble to drag it into my studio every time I want to record/tweak anything, that is the main reason I wanted Amplitube 2, and as it turns out the sound is much better and more realistic to my ears with A2 than with the Vetta.

I have been making music for about 30 years - firstly playing bass in garage bands as a young teenager then professionally for close to 25 years as a touring musician - I now produce music for myself & others - also for tv etc & have been a DJ for close to 10 years
I record using pro tools le 6.9 & sequence with reason 3 in rewire - I have found amplitube to be an absolutely essential plug in for bass, guitar, drums, vocals, keys - anything you want to throw at it - you can pull some amazing sounds out of this plugin
I would be lost without it - I use sans amp as an alternative - both are must haves & very simple to use

I use a mac G5 OSX with dual screens for ease of editing

Extremely easy to use - a no brainer - if you can use a computer you can use this plugin - especially if you have used a real guitar amp
My experience with copy protection for most i-lok based plugins is a pain & a hassle
The sounds are awesome - only as limited as your imagination & skill

Great for normalizing tracks too - use the clean & flat setting
Presets are good - spend some time & build your own
Mono or stereo - I'm satisfied

It's a tad pricey but then again most pro tools plugins are
I had a version of this as a cubase user - I'm glad I moved over to pro tools
I wish there were more user patches easily found on the net
CPU wise it's pretty good - I have souped up my machine to cope with lots of plugins & It's never crashed

I wish I could get a free upgrade to Amplitube2 when its released - you get charged for everything these days - nothing is for free